Boxing brothers chasing titles

With a famous world champion like Ricky Hatton in your corner you should be inspired to win titles and the band of brothers in the Upton clan aim to follow their mentor’s road to glory, writes Len Whaley.

Anthony, Paul and Sonny Upton, blossomed at Dagenham BC before moving to Ireland and winning amateur awards in Dublin and Belfast.

They switched to the paid ranks and are back living locally, but head for the Manchester training camp of former two-time world champion Hatton.

“There’s a great atmosphere with the boys at the gym – they are like a family to me and working so hard to become champions,” said Hatton.

The trio are back in action on Saturday’s Goodwin promotion at York Hall, in a trio of six-round bouts against selected opponents.

But there is no doubt they will be looking for title bouts in the months ahead.

“We’d like to start with Irish titles and then go on to bigger things,” said 27-year-old Paul, while Anthony is more direct, adding: “I want to be a world champion,”

Nine straight victories in the lightweight division put Anthony, 23, one ahead ahead of light-middleweight Paul.

Middle brother Sonny, a 26-year-old light-middleweight has seven wins and two defeats to date.

The clan have a devoted fan following, including a six feet tall leprechaun and burly father Tony, a big Celtic soccer fan backing his ‘Bhoys.’

So you can be certain there will be plenty of noise at York Hall, roaring them into action as usual. “We are so grateful to all our fans for their support – and for our Dad’s efforts selling the tickets – he makes it all possible,” said Sonny.

The Goodwin bill, as usual, has more than a dozen bouts listed and is topped by an English title eliminator between Johnny Garton and Martin Welsh.

Also on Saturday’s card are fights featuring Chris Evangelou, Dominic Akinlade, Joe Butler, Kay Prospere, Ryan Davies and Michael Peart.

*Unbeaten Dagenham lightweight Eddie Hussein gets his seventh pro outing on the world title bill at Wembley on September 26.

He meets Leicester’s Lewis Jones on a Frank Warren show headed by a WBA world super-middleweight title clash between Frank Buglioni and Russian title-holder Fedor Chudinov.

Other title action on a star-studded bill features Ahmet Patterson, Lewis Pettit, Ryan Walsh, Bradley Skeete and Jamie Cox.

*Boxing author Ralph Oates may have moved from Essex out to the leafy lanes of Suffolk, but remains an enthusiastic expert and has produced his ninth book on the sport.

‘The Noble Art of Heavyweight Boxing’ (published by Robert Hale Limited £17.99) presents over 200 pages of information about boxing’s beef brigade.

Oates takes us from the bare knuckle days to the current kings of the division in a book packed with interesting facts and statistics. It includes a foreword by former heavyweight ‘Golden Boy’ Billy Walker who is featured in the book alongside some fine pictures from the past.

After over 25 years of writing boxing books it’s clearly a labour of love for the author who hopes fans will enjoy his latest effort. I think they will Ralph.